Marked
by TheQueenieM
Summary: "Your arm, my forehead: They're not so different, Draco."  Sixth year. Draco switches loyalties, but is left with an inked reminder that's causing them both pain. The boys discover the burdens - and the unexpected possibilities - of being marked.
1. Chapter 1

If you find FiercelyProtective!Harry adorable and ToppishYetEmoish!Draco yummy, this might be just the right fic for you, dear reader.

Schmoopy snuggling **and** naughty bondage? Nuanced emotional dynamics **and** crazy hot face-melting sex? Sure. They go great together, like chocolate and peanut butter. Or naked Harry and naked Draco.

A cleaner layout of this fic, and one with a nice pretty Drarry pic, can be found over on my LJ, clickable via my profile.

Warnings: A wee and quickly passing moment of what could be interpreted as non-con, and some very rough play. I wouldn't call it at all 'extreme,' but if anything in even a BDSM_ish_ category squicks you, better safe than sorry. NC-17, mature content; readers of age of majority only, please. (Seriously, it's filthy. *Facepalm* The muses keep sending me the pervy kind of plot bunnies.)

Disclaimerage: I don't own the characters, no copyright infringement intended blahblah, and slashy goodness of the M/M variety - if you don't like that, don't read this. Simples. And of course we all know that even though Harry's "no" really meant "yes," out here in the real world, No means No. Period.

Still need a regular beta! If you read & like this fic, and might be interested in betaing for me in future, please drop me a message. Feedback, collabs, story requests also welcome. I write mostly for the enjoyment of other Drarry fans, so I hope you enjoy this fic!

I've fudged the timeline here - let's just pretend that the smexy-crying in Myrtle's bathroom takes place in February, 'kay?

* * *

><p><strong>I.<strong>

It's illogical, but as he stares at it, he's certain it hurts Draco even as he sleeps.

A tiny furrow creases the expanse of blonde-fringed forehead despite the even breathing, and Harry wants to reach over, run his finger soothingly over the black stain standing out in sharp relief against white skin and white sheet, both more the pale for the watery moonlight streaming in. But he knows better, knows not to, and his stomach lurches heavily at the remembered lesson.

The first time he ever saw it. _Their_ first time - that frantic, messy, still half-dressed frenzy in the Room of Requirement - and Harry had dared, in the blissful haze afterwards, when Draco had seemed so– accessible, to reach toward it in caress, in sympathy, where a tiny part of it peeked out from below the sleeve of the disheveled cashmere jumper. Even now, two months later, tears still ghost his eyes replaying the expression on Draco's face, the cutting spite in his voice as he snatched his arm away, snatched himself away, and disappeared down the empty hallway. The unhinged week during which he refused to even look at Harry across classrooms, at meals. How uncertainty and despair had gnawed him raw until Draco finally let him hold his gaze once, twice. Then a few awkward words, Harry sweating out of every pore, the few delicate exchanges, and the moment when Draco finally smiled, just a little, just enough to let him know he could come back: To his bed, to his rough embraces, to whatever this was between them. As if in response to Harry's thoughts, the slumbering sprawl of milky flesh next to him rustles with the slow movements of dreaming, turns over. Turns back toward Harry and curls warmly against him, slipping a possessive arm snugly around his chest.

Grateful, Harry sighs at the feeling, quietly as he can. It's only in his sleep that Draco holds him like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

Pulling on his shoes as they dress in the quiet dawn light, he thinks ponderously to himself that they're not so different, really; he's marked, too, and while his isn't a stigma, he's not repulsed by the snake that lives under Draco's sleeve. If he could just get Draco to trust him, and to know that Harry trusts him, completely, even though no one else does, despite Dumbledore's admonition that they all accept Draco back as one of their own after he'd defied his father and come to Albus to confess the fatal plan. It was one of the venerated leader's few commandments ever to fall on deaf ears; there wasn't to be found a single Hogwarts student who didn't seize on the revelation as proof of their long suspicion that Lucius Malfoy's boy was a criminal behind the handsome face, conveniently ignoring the far more important fact of his having bravely redeemed himself.

The dark mark was at the core of that disparaging, and was thus a frequent topic of gossip and speculation. Although only Harry, a few professors, and one Quidditch shower ogler has actually seen it, they all know it's there. And although Dumbledore had succeeded in breaking the summoning power of the mark, he hadn't been able to do much about its appearance. Objectively, it was a little lighter, but to unfriendly eyes it was just as stark and legible a message as it ever was. Harry's own lightly scarred hand has, it's true, actual - if faded - lettering, but the strictly pictorial image on the smooth underside of forearm spoke far louder words. It almost seems that they're literally audible sometimes, and not just to everyone else, but to Draco himself, too; Harry's seen the tenuous smile run away, the dove-colored eyes clouding over as he tilts his head slightly as though he hears the words, whispering in his ear. If Harry could only– find a way to show him. That's it's not– that it's not ugly, not to Harry. That he knows Draco's suffered, but he doesn't want him to hide.

It's an odd thought to be having at the moment, as his cock, warm behind his just-buttoned pants, stirs suddenly from his watching the object of that thought pull on the crisp dress shirt, arrogantly knowing full well how appealing he looks doing it. Harry parts his lips and lets the little moan out, encouraged by the sly glint in the sharp eyes. Draco likes it in the morning, something fast and hard, before they part ways for their classes. Harry's already been late to Herbology three times consecutively, but he doesn't want to say no to him and, probably, if he's really honest with himself, _couldn't_, even if he wanted to: When Draco looks at him like this, the only coherent syllable he can locate inside his tumbling mind is _Yes_.

Streaking his own trousers with eager pre-cum, Harry stands from where he's been sitting on the bed's edge tying his laces, hooks a finger into Draco's belt loop and offers himself up for a kiss. Draco would be furious if he knew, but Harry often thinks at moments like this how much Draco's mouth is like a flower, opening against his own. Then it's not a flower at all, as Draco seizes and bites and plunders, overpowers him with tongue and teeth and lips the perfect timbre of aggressive, one hand twisting his shirt, the other his hair. Neither gently.

It makes Harry crave in ways he can't even articulate, makes him want even more - more roughness, more surrender - and he thinks he knows how to get it. He's thought of this before, certainly, but why he chooses now to make his move, Harry's not sure. Draco's hand on him, maybe - because he really _can_ feel the strength of him, so it's not a lie, this bait, or perhaps because he has a dim sense that what he craves is also something he can _give_ to Draco, a kind of gift that might– help, somehow, and so he touches Draco's hand curled around the cloth at the curve of his side and ventures, gasping between thrusts of imperious tongue: "I can. Feel your strength in your hand. Most people don't realize how strong you are. Because you're slim and– elegant. They don't realize. But I know. You're very. Strong." His words slow the ruthless grazing down to curious intermittent nipping, so Harry clears his throat with a nervous sound and dares elaboration.

"You're so strong that I couldn't– I mean, if you were to– I wouldn't... be able to...

stop you."

Having glanced shyly down as he'd said it, Harry is late to the show as he looks back up: Draco's eyes are glittering darkly, and his mouth is parted just slightly enough to emit warm moisture over now blood-red lips. A ghost of pink shot across each sharp cheekbone like warpaint and something fierce skating beneath the skin. He has only a second to think the word "predatory" before the blonde pulls back and stares at him.

"Wouldn't be able to stop me if I _what_?"

Harry suddenly can't breathe. Draco's hand is still fisted in his shirt, but the rest of him only hovers, just inches away, refusing the contact he desperately needs, a tease of burning presence that rips through his skin and makes him shudder. The work of a moment, a handful of words, and suddenly there was this. Fantasy turned into reality. The room hot and close and beating loudly with energy, and something coming off of Draco in waves, waves that drown Harry and make it hard to breathe and hard, oh hard– harder than he's ever been in his life, even those nights he'd had to spend alone recently, when Draco's been occupied with evening Prefect duties; when he had cast a silencing charm on his bed curtains and spelled the rope tightly onto his own wrists, writhed hot and hard and aching, thrusting piteously against empty air as he imagined Draco tying him down, brutally shoving his legs apart and–

"That's not really an answer," Draco drawls, and it's several seconds before Harry registers that he's essentially mewled wordlessly in reply. A babbled sound that seems to have pleased the older boy, despite the spoken corrective. Impossibly, Harry feels tied, taught and high, his feet barely touching the floor. There are no ropes, no chains, but somehow Draco's making him feel... Bound.

Struggling for balance, he reaches for words, gulping sandily. "I– if you. If you tried to. Do whatever you wanted. To me."

lll

Feeling the blood rush to his face, Harry knows with immediate, nauseous clarity that he's gone into this much more unprepared than he'd realized. Fantasy was one thing, but this was reality, and out here in reality, Draco suddenly did seem strong, stronger than Harry, strong enough to hurt him, powerful enough, in fact, to _actually_ do anything to him that he wanted–

"_Whatever I wanted_?" Slate eyes narrow with unsettling precision. Harry twitches with anxiety as Draco glares, pinning him where he stands as securely as a butterfly to a board using nothing more than his gaze and his voice. "Do you know, Harry? Do you really know what you're getting into here?"

"_Do you have any idea, the kinds of things that__–__ happen to people? The kinds of things _I _could do to _you?"

He didn't, really, but he'd heard– things. Whispers about Muggle clubs where people tied each other, and other things, things Harry couldn't figure out, even when he'd snuck back into the stairwell to look at the folded and worn magazine pages where the tittering sixth years had left them tucked into a secret notch in the wall. But those people agreed to. Enjoyed it. Wanted it. Not like– There had always been fragments of rumor. Terrible, unimaginable things that He Who Must Not Be Named did to captives. Sometimes to young and attractive death eaters.

Caught between terror and desire, Harry could only shake his head, uncertainly, try to remain steady on his rapidly weakening legs, thinking desperately. Draco wouldn't really _harm_ him– would he?

"Then perhaps," Draco oozes, dragging his teeth along Harry's ear and whispering the words like tiny, glorious knives against his neck, "I should _show you_."

Easily peeling away Harry's still-unbuttoned shirt, Draco tosses it aside and strolls casually behind him. His mouth dry, Harry drops his gaze to the floor in an attempt to clear his head, and finds himself embarrassed by his shoes, of all things. Draco, unsurprisingly, looks impeccable, his flawless suit and black leather shoes gleaming in the growing morning light in counterpoint to Harry's rumpled pants and scuffed trainers. He suddenly feels naked, exposed. He watches as the expensive shoes reappear in his vision, tries to look up, tries to be brave. Trembles as he sees what Draco's reaching for. The buckle yields to dexterous fingers before Harry can even gather his wits to protest.

The belt sliding slowly from its loops around Harry's waist hisses sibilantly. Snake. Slytherin. Clammy sweat springs out of his skin. There's something in Draco's eyes, something Harry's never seen in them, even when he'd been at his most furious. This was dangerous. He was in over his head. He had to get out of this. Swaying dizzily, he manages, "Draco. Please. No. I– didn't really mean- don't. _Don't!_"

It's too late.

Busy trying to blink running sweat from his eyelashes, he hadn't even seen the wand in Draco's hand. Something was tight, too tight, around his wrists. His toes suddenly barely finding purchase on the stone floor. As he peers up at the low-slung oak ceiling beam which now securely holds the other end of his belt, his mind unhelpfully provides the phrase "Strung up," and he presses down the fear that threatens to rise in his throat when it tries to tack on the clause "like an animal for slaughter."

Twisting, Harry pleads to be untied. Is placidly ignored as Draco strolls behind him again.

"I always knew you'd look pretty, tied and bound and– _helpless_."

Harry watches with rapt fascination as lovely hands slip around his waist from behind and flick the button of his pants open effortlessly.

Unbearable. It's nothing but unbearable, the slowness with which Draco was stripping him, in every sense. Unbearable, the care he takes to avoid touching Harry's desperate cock. Careful even to not allow the fabric to give him the small mercy of a moment's tiny friction as his trousers fall with a quiet whoosh to the floor. Careful to not. Oh. God. Draco's slim fingers under the band of his briefs. Not touching. Lifting. Over, down. Careful not to touch. Cool air meets hot red skin; he mewls, again. Tries not to thrust at the empty air, thrusts anyway, and Draco laughs at his agony, at his lack of self-control. The laugh in Draco's throat is– dark. Frightening. Exciting. Harry burns with shame and desire and something he can't define. He doesn't know how to play this game, and Draco does. He's in over his head. He's afraid. And he– likes it.

"Please–"

Drawing his fingertips too lightly, too slowly down the side of Harry's bare torso, Draco murmurs liquidly, "Please _what_, Harry?"

Already reduced to a senseless wall of need, he hears the question as though from deep underwater. What were the right words? He has no idea. Struggling, shivering, he begins to shake. "T– Oh god. _Touch me_."

The sound in Draco's throat this time is less smug. And it isn't a laugh at all. Sinking his fingers into the thick ridge of muscle acrest Harry's hipbone, Draco grinds out "So pretty when you beg," before letting go and stepping back, causing Harry to lose his balance as he tries, reflexively and futilely, to follow the fingers he needs to feel, the body he needs pressed against him again.

His eyes half-closed, he feels more than sees Draco circle slowly round to the front of him, but snaps to attention when he feels the wand on his chin, tipping his face up as that voice, serene and icy with authority, addresses him.

"And just where should I touch you, hmm?" "Here?," he asked, lightly drawing the tip of his wand down Harry's muscled thigh. "Or perhaps here," he continues, resting it gently next to Harry's quivering navel. "Or here," he breathes, brushing his lips, this time, across the scar just visible through a lock of wet, disheveled hair.

Setting his wand carefully aside, Draco leans in to lick a salty line of sweat from Harry's jaw before walking behind him and growling cuttingly, menacingly into his ear.

"You don't give the orders here. _I do_."

Before he can finish the small gasp that rises in him, Harry feels teeth and nails breaking skin simultaneously at his neck and hip. He surprises himself by not crying out. Letting his cramping muscles sag, he gives his full weight over to the knot at his wrists, causing a bolt of pain to shoot down his arms, joining the rictus of pain already blooming under the sharp twin assaults. They groan together, and the vibration of the pleasure rumbling in Draco's chest against Harry's back makes his untouched cock jerk painfully. He thinks he hears his captor whisper something, but whatever it was doesn't matter, because then the fingers of Draco's right hand are suddenly in Harry's mouth, and the fingers of his left are gliding across his abdomen, promising not to stop this time, promising not to not touch this time. He can taste his own blood under Draco's fingernails as he sucks the perfectly groomed fingers deeper into his mouth, sucking with a fervor that feels like luscious madness. Draco's other hand keeps its promise and when it slides gracefully to the base of his cock, Harry is screaming, muffled screams around the wet sucking, harder and harder around the fingers in his mouth and he can no longer tell who the ragged breathing belongs to and yes oh god yes Draco's hand on his dick, sliding, Draco's fingers viciously fucking his mouth, and Harry's face smeared with his own pooling saliva, gagging and moaning like an animal, his tongue begging to beg, a desire Draco seems somehow to understand, because he's suddenly pulling his fingers out of Harry's mouth so he can spill the words, stammering things he's never imagined. Shocking things. _Please__–__ fuck me. Make me your__–__ wh.. whore. Hurt me. Use me. Anything. Anything you want._

The sound of a zipper is the last thing Harry hears before it all explodes.

Draco's fingers in his mouth had been harsh; Draco's fingers in his arse are savage. Shoving. Exquisite. When Harry, despite the pain, pushes back wantonly for more, more, he hears Draco gasp. They're in a circuit now; Harry's submission undoes Draco a little more each time. Draco has the power, but Harry suddenly realizes that he has a kind of power, too. The fingers gone leave him aching with emptiness only a second before the cock entering fills him with aching fullness. It's too soon; he's wet, but not loose enough. They hadn't ever– not yet, and it hurts much more than he'd imagined or expected, and he cries out, then simply cries, a few tears sliding down his inflamed cheek, and Draco slows. _Please don't stop_. Harry lets his head fall backwards onto the sturdy shoulder behind him, lets his whole body give over to the pain and the love and whatever these other things were, rolling through him like an earthquake. Language is leaving him, and he has important things to say, so he says them, chokes them out and prays Draco can hear him. _Harder_. _As hard as you want. Let go. Don't hold back. Let it all go. Give it all to me. _If he'd had the strength to open his eyes, he would have caught a glimpse of Draco's face reflected in the mirror across from them: Tears there too. Not from pain, like Harry's. From something else entirely. If Harry could open his eyes, he'd see the awe in the face that is completely unguarded for the first time in Draco's life, seeming to shine with a sudden light, but as it is, he can only hear and feel: Hear the soft _Ohgod. Harry. I-_. _I_-.; Feel Draco's chest against his back, his cock pounding relentlessly into his battered body, and the small answering trickle of intimate blood slowly making its way down the inside of his left thigh; the strong arms around him; one sure hand on his cock and the other pressing hard, desperately it seemed, against Harry's heart.

Each wounding thrust sweeps him further off his feet, swaying in his bonds, digging the edge of the belt deeper into the skin of his wrists, cutting, hurting more, drawing more of that strange and new pleasure from deep inside Harry, this complicated pleasure-from-pain that he had never been able to articulate, but which had begun in recent years to burn, low and steady, in his stomach, every time the haughty Slytherin had strutted by, or bullied him. He'd wanted– he hadn't known exactly what. Now he knew. _This_. Helpless. Owned. Giving himself over completely. He can hear his own voice, from afar. Nothing but Yes. _Yes_, again and again, _Yes_, and then _I love you _as pale hand and paler hips speed up, drive him over the edge of the world, carry him blindly over the brink, leaving him as shaking and drenched and wobbly on his legs as a newborn calf.

lll

Draco is murmuring "shhh," petting his back gently, and Harry's puzzled until he realizes he's almost-shouting "dontstopdonteverstop" over and over like a needle skipping on a broken record. Snapping back to lucidity like an Immobulus charm breaking, he relaxes against the warm body behind him. Easing himself out of Harry's wracked frame, Draco continues to run his hands tenderly across his skin, trailing soft kisses across his blazing shoulders as he pulls away to retrieve his wand. He has Harry out of the belt in a wave, catching him firmly when he drops back to his heels and staggers a little, turning him gently around into his arms. Softly spelling away the blood, Draco's voice drops to nearly inaudible as he casts the internal healing charm, his other hand resting so lightly against his spine that Harry holds his breath to prevent the motion of his ribcage from disturbing the simple touch that feels more like magic than any actual magic he's ever experienced. But when Draco reaches to wand away the swelling bite from the juncture of his collarbone and neck, Harry pulls away, drawing a small startled sound out of his healer.

"No, don't– I. I don't want to make it go away. I want to, um. Keep it. As a.. reminder."

"A reminder?"

"As a sign."

"A sign?"

"That you– marked me. That... I'm yours."

Harry's last two syllables had emerged sounding more like a question than he'd meant them to, and they hang thickly in the abrupt silence. He realizes the unintended implications of his words only a split second before Draco spits them out with vicious clarity into the sudden space between them. "_Shut_. _Up_. _You don't have _any idea _what it's like, belonging to someone, branded like__–__ like bloody chattel."_

Twisting now with regret and panic, Harry stumbles for words, reaches a hand up to brush the mussed chestnut hair aside, gesturing to his scar as he stammers out "My– and your– They're not so different. I just–"

He doesn't know if he'd have been able to finish the sentence anyway, but it's a moot point, his words falling dead under the sword of Draco's barked retort.

"_You,_"he grits out_,_ "don't know the first fucking thing about being _marked_."

The terrifying sneer is all Harry can see, the terrifying end of them is all he can hear. Draco looms over him, seething, so close Harry feels every furious breath moisten the skin of his face. There's something coming off of Draco in waves again, but it's nothing that makes Harry feel giddy and thrilled. It's hatred; pure, undiluted hatred, and it hits him like a bludger blow.

Panic closes around his trachea and he does the only thing he can think of in the inferno of anxiety, some deep lesson planted in his flesh by his mother, and he reverts to it reflexively: Just love. There is nothing love cannot repair. And so he reaches to embrace the reverberating column of rage in front of him, hopeful, suddenly, as he recalls all the love he's gotten and given, all the times he's seen it overcome any danger, any obstacle. Feels the power of it, moving through his bones like a heady draught of strength potion.

There's a brief moment - during which Harry practically collapses with relief - when it feels as though Draco is reaching back. And then Harry realizes he's hugging empty air.

Draco's far away, much farther away than where he literally is, standing with his arms crossed at his chest, staring out of the foggy window. He's silent, and that's worse, much worse, than the shouting. Quietly gathering his things, Harry dares a glance at the ghostly profile and sees, really _see_s, for the first time the faint purple crescents under Draco's eyes, suddenly realizes they're always there, even when he's slept. In the dappled light, Draco looks much older than he is, world weary and worn. Harry sees the briefest flicker of the boy he's grown up with, year in and year out, catches a glimpse of the posturing but in reality innocent child he remembers, before it slips away, back behind the curtain of bitterly set mouth and furrowed brow. He looks haunted, Harry thinks sadly. He looks– Oh.

He looks _marked_. Wheels click in Harry's mind.

As he picks up the cloak he'll slip over himself to make an unseen exit through the Slytherin common room, he waits a long moment for Draco to turn, look at him, acknowledge him in any way at all. He doesn't, and Harry only just manages to hold back the quiet sob climbing his throat. Even the cloak doesn't make him feel this invisible. 


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

The weeks that follow find them spending increasingly less time together, and while Draco's always tended toward taciturn, there's an edge to his silences now that there wasn't before. The worst is that he won't _look_ at Harry on those ever more rare occasions when they're in bed, when he's rutting hard against him, his face turned decisively away, the silver ring on his thin hand scraping and hurting them both where he has their cocks pressed together in a determined fist, sweat matting the platinum hair to his forehead. Harry might have been able to bear all of these, for as long as Draco needed, or even forever if need be, but. There's no arm around him anymore, in the middle of the night; no languid, beautiful roll of long limbs and the contented sigh, every time, from the lithe sleeper as he settles against Harry, unconsciously nuzzling his hair and neck. Harry's chest squeezes remembering that feeling, that sound, that Draco, and he's so lost in it that he fails to hear Flitwick, patiently pressing him for the second time about some particular of the _Aguamenti_. Half-heartedly, Harry lifts his wand and goes through the first motions, while his mind remains far away, still churning with despair. He can hardly believe it's only been a handful of months between when they began and where they are now– close, all too close, Harry fears, to ending. He suddenly feels like he's lived a whole exhausting lifetime in just one semester. And he knows Draco has, too.

With late April sending the heady scent of Asphodel blooms wafting through the sidelights of the warm and sunny charms classroom, it should be difficult to feel the chilly, remembered breeze of February on flushed skin, but it isn't, and in an eyeblink he's back there, seeing himself gasping like a stricken man when the skilled hand grips him through his trousers and he comes all over Draco's slim fingers even before he has him all the way out of his pants, then nearly fainting as he watches the pointed pink tongue drag leisurely along the pearly mess with a hum of pleasure.

If someone had told him that what had begun at Slughorn's Christmas party would eventually land them there, in that sticky, perfect, dizzying glory, he'd have been convinced that said speaker was under the influence of a Confundus charm.

lll

_Luna's tugging at his sheened black formal jacket, whispering, but he hardly hears, watching intently as Argus grips a grimacing Draco in his hand. In the red glow of the lamps, he looks__–__ wan, and Harry realizes that he's been looking that way for some time. Tired. He's angry, yes; twisting energetically, yes. But beneath that, there's a deep fatigue. It's the easy work of a moment to make an excuse and follow the flaring swirl of Snape's robe as they depart, and Harry assumes he's following them to spy, to discover what new treachery Malfoy's up to. He's sure it's nothing to do with that feeling that's been slowly stoking in his stomach recently, some kind of__–__ hunger__–__ whenever he thinks about the surly blonde. He's almost sure._

_It's only snatches of sentences he catches, standing this far back, but the bits and pieces are enough to confirm his suspicions, and he's angry, as angry as Draco, who's just stormed away from Snape, and Harry catches up to him so quickly that he hasn't time to think what he's going to say. As they turn into a dim corridor, he halts him with the only word that comes to mind._

"Malfoy!"

_The rest is blurred in a white haze of anger, as Harry pounces, verbally, and very nearly physically, on the shadowy figure, and he's entirely unprepared for both the softness that appears on Malfoy's face and the reply he delivers in the small slice of quiet when Harry finally stops yelling in order to take a breath. "You don't understand. I'm not going to__–__ Yes, I've got a plan, but it's not. It's not what you think. I can't tell you more, now. But I swear. It's not what it seems. I__–__" His gesturing hand falls back to his side with an air of hopelessness, and he doesn't offer any other words. _

_Even if it had been from someone Harry trusted, this flimsy explanation would be wildly insufficient, but, inexplicably, Harry believes him. Something about his face, maybe, or the way he's breathing. Harry doesn't know, will never know, why something in his ribcage suddenly shifts, expands, and he trusts that there's truth behind the cryptic response, despite the fact that it's as thin and full of holes as lacework. For weeks, rumors have sailed through the halls: Draco Malfoy is now a deatheater. He's taken the dark mark. It could be true, Harry thinks as he leans forward; as he begins to extend his hand. But even if it is, there's more going on here than the simple "Malfoy is evil" narrative favored by every gossip within and without the castle walls, so he doesn't stop. He doesn't know what, exactly, he's offering by his extended hand, but he hopes the long nemesis he's suddenly seeing in a new light will accept it. With a catch in his throat, he suddenly remembers with regret his own rejection of Draco's small hand so many years ago. The holiday candles in the hallway flicker, and Harry doesn't see the lifting, but he hears the slight rustle of cloth a second before the meeting hand is there, closing warmly on his. And then just as quickly it's gone, and Draco's disappearing into the darkness. _

_It's a solid month before Harry works up the nerve to try to approach him, and then another week before he actually does it. Ironically, given how often he'd shadowed the Slytherin, it's wholly accidental - he's on his way to talk with Ron when he happens to see a flash of dress shirt flit round a corner like a skittering white bat, and somehow he knows it's Draco, takes a few quick strides after him before he's halted by the noise._

_He'd have been prepared for anything else, really, from the treacherous to the sublime, but this__–__ He thinks for a moment he must have it wrong - either that sound isn't what he thinks it is, or that wasn't in fact Malfoy darting into Myrtle's bathroom. Except that it is, and it was, and the sound slices through Harry as viciously as a Sectumsempra. He feels instinctively alarmed, and takes one quiet step forward on the marble floor, but guilt stills him. It seems so private, this choked, unbearable sobbing, and while there was the hesitant connection between the two of them in the holiday-glowed corridor, they'd hardly spoken in the interim, despite the fact that Harry's thought of little else every day, every hour, since. Conflicted, he finally turns away, his heart seized with ache. He'll find Draco tomorrow, devise some ruse to start a conversation, help him, if he can; simply listen sympathetically if he can't. _

_It proves an unnecessary plan. The students are convened to special emergency assembly the next morning, even before first classes, and when Harry walks in a minute or two tardy, the first thing he sees is Draco, looking much smaller than his appreciable height, his eyes casting nervously down, then up as he stands quietly beside Dumbledore in front of the entire company of Hogwarts. Harry's heart lurches in his chest as he slides into an end seat, and he fears the worst, but Albus doesn't look angry, or grave. He looks, in fact, quite pleased, and as he quiets the murmuring mass of students and begins to explain, it's quickly clear why: Draco Malfoy has defied his father and come to Dumbledore to, as it were, defect to the side of good. _

_Dumbledore's explanatory oration is thorough, but Harry had stopped listening after the first minute. He's heard all he needed to hear. He'd been there last night, watched silently what he's now discovering was the moment a young man, pressed into terrifying circumstances, was wrestling with a decision the enormity of which Harry could only imagine. Against the low-pitched, clearly scandalized murmur of the students, Harry hears the esteemed headmaster raising his voice in emphasis on phrases like "community" "welcome" "one of us", but what he sees is quite the opposite of those words: A boy thrust into a stark and terrible kind of solitude. _

_As he watches Draco try and fail to find any comfortable place to rest his gaze, Harry realizes that the former pride of the Malfoy line now has no one. No parents: He's betrayed his father, been disowned, losing Narcissa too, who'd surprised him by joining Lucius in shunning him. And no friends under this roof, where he'll be damned on both sides: Slytherins will revile him as weak, and the others as proven evil once only suspected. Standing behind Dumbledore, framed in the pallid light of February trickling in through the great hall's tall windows, he looks__–__ He looks exactly what he is now: Completely alone in the world. No companions, a terrible enemy thirsty for revenge, and carrying a weight none of his peers could possibly understand. Or rather, none but one._

_Harry can feel it from all the way back in the last row of benches, that weight, and he's shocked to find that it's not merely empathy that he's suddenly feeling. Harry realizes with a start that he wants to help Draco carry that weight. Wants to help rid him of it. Wants to__–__ already does,_

_love him._

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_It was ingrained habit by then, shadowing the willowy figure, and Harry makes an easy transition from doing so out of suspicion to doing so for__–__ what? Protection? He's not certain what he'd call it, but he _is_ sure that Draco's an outcast now, and in need of an ally. As they filtered out of the great hall that morning, he hadn't heard a single kind word among the buzzing students, only cruelties, smug "I told you so"s, and self-righteous condemnations._

_Following unseen in Draco's path over the next few days, Harry hears them in the halls, mocking him - initially quietly, cautiously. Then openly, without hesitation. Gleefully. Draco can't strike back now; he has to prove he's not the monster he's been literally and figuratively branded to be, and Harry winces the first time he sees Draco's knuckles, painfully white, the bone making the skin so tight it glistens as he shoves his clenched fists into the pockets of his robe and walks resignedly on as the taunts hit him like small stones. Traitor. Death Eater. _

Voldemort's whore.

_Harry had waited until Draco's tension-gripped back disappeared around the corner before striding up to the Ravenclaw fifth year who stood laughing with the echo of that last slur in his mouth. He didn't need to grab his shirtfront in threat, didn't need to touch him at all; Harry's eyes, flashing violently, were more than enough assurance that he meant exactly what he said: _

If you _ever_ speak a word - even a single word - about him again,

_I will make you wish you had never been born_.

_It's still bristling with that exchange that Harry bursts through the door of the Room of Requirement where Draco's quietly dismantling the Vanishing Cabinet, alone, as he'd requested of Dumbledore, who had offered assistance; suggested, even, that someone else do it, that Draco start putting this behind him and moving forward. "That you forgive yourself," the silent additive clause in the kindly headmaster's mind as he'd watched the young man, bowed at the shoulders, exit quietly from his office. Draco turns at the intrusion, and Harry stops a moment and takes him in: There's a bit of cobweb on his trousers, and dust motes are picking up flecks of light in the white-gold hair. He's clearly surprised by the sound of the door, but he doesn't blink or speak, just looks steadily at Harry, the mildly questioning expression on his face transforming into a very kind different sort as he fully registers the one on Harry's._

_He should be startled when he catches the glimpse of it after, as he's folded in Draco's arms where they're slumped against an inverted couch, cushioned on Harry's hastily yanked off robe, the blonde lashes laying peacefully closed, the face that frames them looking rested, instead of, as usual, tired. The tiny thread of cool winter air slipping in from a neglected window curls around them like ribbon, and Harry smiles contentedly as he glances down to where their hands rest lazily entwined on his thigh. For a split second, he thinks the black fleck floating above the inside of Draco's wrist is a smudge, dirt that had dared to stick to pureblood skin as he'd gone about his dusty task. Only for a split second, and then he knows._

_He should, in fact, be not merely startled, but horrified; it's the brand of the greatest evil the world has ever known, of the monster who murdered his parents. But he's not. It's just part of Draco - Draco who is a lot of things, but simple not being one of them. He's complicated and he's contradictory, and the green-black mark is just part of that, and while Harry knows the others see it as a label of crime, forever indelible proof of his complicity, he sees the opposite in it: a badge of honor. Forever indelible proof that Draco had the courage to defy not only his father, but Voldemort; a visible reminder that he had the strength of character to make the right choice after making the wrong one. His classmates regard the whispered-about stain as physical proof of their long-held suspicion that beneath the pretty exterior beats an ugly heart, but Harry knows the truth: His beauty's not just a mask. Draco Malfoy is as beautiful inside as he is out. It's that thought that has him softly, disastrously, reaching toward cashmere._

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He can't stop seeing Draco's face at that awful moment, even as the good-natured Hufflepuff next to him taps Harry's arm in confusion, gesturing with his eyes that Charms is over and the room emptied.

Nodding and making the pretense of needing to stay behind to gather up his strewn quills and books, Harry sends him on his way, hearing in the sound of the retreating footfalls the painful echo of Draco striding away from his reaching hand, left hovering in the dusty air. Still remembering the lush caress of the fabric against his bare back in the blissful last seconds before he made the blunder of trying to touch the inky brand, Harry realizes suddenly and with a quiet horror that it's not just the others who see it as not merely infamy, but as disgusting – In the snarl and the tearing away, Harry only noticed the anger, but the rest was just as clear and alive on the boy's face: Shame.

Then, they'd tremulously rebuilt the fragile bridge between them, but this time–

Draco's steadily slipping away, into the arms of demons Harry doesn't know how to exorcise, and thanks to Harry's gaff the space between them is wider than it's ever been. It's true, he _doesn't_ know the first thing about being marked the way Draco is. He can't even imagine it really, and he kicks himself for the stupidity, the naiveté, of his bumbled comparison. He doesn't know how to take those words back, ease the thorn of them out of the wound. What he does know is that what it's done to Draco is a stain on their relationship, palpable even though hidden, just like the mark itself.

It's going to get between them, keep them at a distance, and, if the recent trend was any indication, drive them apart for good. Harry knows he has to do something. The trouble is, he hasn't even the vaguest idea _what_.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

He hadn't expected to run into Draco, walking out of a Prefect's meeting looking fatigued and annoyed, but there he is, easily identifiable even at this distance that renders all discernible details invisible - there's a stiffness in his body that makes him stand out in the crowd of other, more carefree, teenagers. Harry sees a vague orange blur rise up like a buoy bobbing atop a sea of black robes; Ron waves, breaks off from the pack to stroll towards him, but is snagged by the prim hummingbird of bustling efficiency that is Hermione Granger. "Oh no you don't, Ronald Bilius Weasley. You're not leaving me with all these forms to finish alone." Mugging caricaturishly, Ron shrugs, waves now in farewell, and submits himself meekly to the brisk towing of the tiny brunette tornado.

Smiling, Harry turns his eyes back to the strong, slender frame of the Slytherin prefect - "like a reed," he thinks idly - takes one last longing look before cautiously advancing. Still staring sternly down at paperwork, Draco doesn't see him until he's nearly reached him, and Harry tries a small smile. "Bloody awful in there today?" Draco only nods curtly in assent, but his eyes aren't closed off and cold, so Harry steps further out onto the limb: "Take a walk, maybe? Down to the lake?" Draco doesn't look averse, just tired and stressed, so Harry adds quickly, "You could– rest."

The second nod isn't curt, and although it _is_ austere, it still fills Harry with a fluttery warmth.

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The light spring drizzle that sent them into the boathouse for shelter is making the air smell fresh and washed, scrubbed clean of everything, and maybe that's what put the idea in his head, he's not sure. But there it is, and it seems exactly right, it seems precisely what he's been trying to clarify in his mind: He wants Draco to feel the way the lake air smells at this moment. Clean. Pure. Perfect.

As if in telepathic answer, Draco sighs, tugging his tie out of knot and unclasping his robe. Finding a useful hook between oars, he hangs it and when he turns back, Harry's so close he nearly trips over him, causing him to almost laugh a little, for the first time in a long time, some of the fatigue slipping away from his angular face. _Clean. Pure. Perfect. _Harry runs the adjectives through his mind as if they were a spell, some kind of protection, because he's about to leap_._

It's dangerous, it's desperate, and if he stops to think too much about the risk, he won't do it, so Harry stops thinking and falls hard to his knees, flinching as iron enthusiastically meets bone. Draco's eyes glaze over, and he reaches for his fly, assuming the obvious. Unaware that he's biting his lower lip, Harry timidly lays his hand on Draco's, stopping him. An arched aristocratic eyebrow is the silent query, and Harry reaches for an answer, for the explanation, but only manages to stammer "No- I. I-" Suddenly aware that it's not a prelude or a tease, Draco shifts slightly, and genuine confusion starts to creep around the edges of his face.

Brave or stupid or both at once, Harry doesn't know, but he knows he's going to do it, he's not turning back, so he puts one firm hand on Draco's hip, pushing, simultaneously asking and telling, pressing him back toward the raftered wall. He can smell Draco's cock through the fine black fabric, and he nudges his lips hungrily against it as he drags his face slowly up and across his lower body. Draco closes his eyes and makes _that sound_, that sound that makes Harry's world light up like Weasley twin fireworks, and it grabs him so hard in his gut that he almost stops where he is, almost abandons his plan in favor of just greedily sucking and swallowing and watching in awe Draco's contorting face as he comes, growling and cursing, down Harry's throat. Almost.

Which is the same as saying he doesn't, and he's not. What he _is _doing, bravely, stupidly, is reaching for Draco's left arm - now, while the dangerous eyes are still closed on the wake of the wave of lust. He's reaching for the slim white hand, and he takes it, thinking with an internal laugh so nervous it borders on hysteria, that this probably looks like a very strange marriage proposal from a distance. "Maybe, in a way, it is" is the unexpected thought in his head as he turns Draco's arm, gently, the way one would handle a wild animal, and pushes the sleeve up tentatively.

He knows that Draco's eyes have flown open.

His own are closed, squeezed tightly as he can, protectively, as though a cauldron were about to explode right in front of him, but he can actually _hear_ Draco's eyes, open and angry. The sharp hipbone under his other hand jerks and he pushes back what he hopes is hard enough to keep him from pulling away but lightly enough to not rouse fury. He tries to make his hand say "Please. _Please_ stay.", but he can't tell if the sudden stillness in Draco's body is the answer to that silent plea or its dangerous opposite: The eerie stillness before a storm breaks open. The deceptive stillness of a coiled snake the moment before it fatally strikes. Whatever the stillness is, he can't stop now, this is his only opportunity so he leans in for Draco's forearm, the muscles coiled beneath white skin now rippling with tension as he bends his mouth towards the grim tableau. Registering almost subconsciously that neither of them are breathing, Harry touches his lips softly, nearly imperceptibly, against the inked skin as if it were something holy, and Harry a pilgrim. Draco breathes. One small hitched breath, then another. Harry dares the same. Opens his eyes. He's never seen it this closely; Draco's careful to keep it hidden, even when they're fucking. Only when Draco's asleep has he ever gotten more than a quick glimpse. Seeing it this close, he knows he was right, knows that it hurts him, some kind of heavy ache, or a muted burning, perhaps. Nothing like the way his own scar flares when– no. Something much, much worse, a kind of pain that seeps far past Draco's skin, into his bloodstream. Into his heart–

It's only Draco's sharp inhale that makes Harry realize a tear has, at that thought, escaped his eye, landing salty and wet against the mark. He looks up to see Draco looking down at him with an expression he's never seen before. Something shifts, aligns. Harry kisses the salty wet spot. Once. And again. Draco trembles, but doesn't pull away. Experimentally, he licks this time, a nervous but determined swath the whole length of the skull-crested snake, and is emboldened by the response: a groan out of the throat above him that sounds like agony but isn't agony at all. The hip under his other hand rises, begs, and he sees the tiny circle of wet sheen blooming on black wool. His own cock jumps in the cradle of his kneeling thighs and he doesn't hesitate, sending his tongue out again across the plane of marred skin, licking and sucking with the same intoxicating abandon and reverential lust he's so many times laved Draco's cock, his balls, his taut thighs, his arsehole. They're both caught off guard by the power of it, and they're suddenly shivering and gasping in synchrony, Harry licking, sucking, moaning wetly and desperately against the inked forearm, Draco's groans sounding more like actual agony now, terrible strangled sounds of urgency. Harry wants to soothe them, so he turns his head and softly slides his cheek against the tattoo, and that was the best idea he's ever had, bloody brilliant really, because from this angle, he can gaze steadily into Draco's eyes as he smoothes away the pain, the shame, with his own skin.

His right hand still firmly interlaced with Draco's left, Harry moves the other from sharp hipbone to fly, eases Draco, nail-hard and leaking, out of the silky cloth. Holds him, gently. Strokes him, gently. Cheek tenderly strokes forearm, fingers tenderly stroke cock, in a calm unified rhythm, and Draco gasps and gasps but doesn't look away until the very end. He's never shuddered this way before, not making any sound whatsoever, but shaking, everywhere, all at once, and it goes on for so long that when it finally stops, Harry's afraid for a moment, that Draco's hurt, or–. Then in the quiet, Harry hears him name, whispered. It sounds less like a statement than it does an answer to a question. The hand in his squeezes, and silently says something too, before tugging him up into his arms.

_You've marked me. I'm yours_.


End file.
